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Industry conferences accused of failing to provide solutions to threats

Industry conferences and events fail to deliver concrete solutions to current threats.

Art Wong, CEO of IronKey, claimed that with awareness of cyber threats currently very high due to the RSA, Lockheed Martin and LulzSec incidents, he believed that market experts would introduce new preventative methods to tackle threats head on, in a proactive manner

However he said that industry leaders took a reactive stance, focusing instead on dealing with existing threats, protecting endpoints on the network and educating users.

Wong said: “The industry needs to be proactive not reactive, and this was the missing message from the event. It's time for businesses and the industry to take action, preventing threats and therefore protecting both themselves and their customer base.

Asked if he would like to see industry conferences and events address issues and offer solutions rather than discussion, Wong told SC Magazine that it is time for action, not just talk.

He said: “From our point of view, recent events have not delivered enough concrete solutions to current threats. We need to deliver tools and action plans instead of frameworks and studies. Criminals are all too happy to profit from the industry 'dithering' instead of being constructive and create new approaches to stopping cyber crime.

“Events like Infosecurity Europe, the RSA Conference and others gather together a wealth of the industry's best minds. Attending vendors, industry figures and analysts should be able to provide both actionable plans and exposure to the latest solutions.

“More businesses and governments need to send staff to events like these where they can share and learn from each other what's working if events are better attended, we may see more positive and concrete outcomes.”

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